“What I really miss,” I remarked to Paul Squared yesterday, “by not reading a decent newspaper on a regular basis, is that when a phenomenon like Jade re-entering the Big Brother House occurs, I do not have access to a pseudo sociological analysis by one of the politically correct hacks to keep me happy!”No sooner said than, when buying The Independent this morning there, within the first few turns, a double page spread on that very topic. Nor only does this give me intellectual permission to indulge my fascination with so-called popular culture, but the article also asked the question, “WHAT does her success say about the cultural life of the nation?”
I just adore seemingly profound questions answered in a self indulgent, self aware, self justifying journalese with condescending, arch humour informing the analysis. I’m a sucker for snobbishness, especially when it’s displayed in such a self deprecating way. Articles like this allow me to indulge my sick fascination with the ignorant loud mouth; feel superior to her unbelievable lack of basic knowledge and feel guilty about all of the preceding. It’s the perfect literary treat for a wishy-washy liberal like me! (And with squirm making pictures too!)
I do not think I can, in all conscience, watch the benighted programme until The Abomination has been taken off. I have not taken to leaving the room (which I do when ‘Coronation Street’ comes on the box) but have satisfied my values by sitting at a table where I cannot see the television (although I can make out what is happening by looking at the reflection of the TV in the sliding glass doors onto the conservatory! My excuse is that the ground floor of my house is open plan, and so there is no separate room into which I can flounce when the programme is aired. And no, I am not sitting in the toilet for an hour!
It is perhaps a credit to the programme that I feel as strongly as I do, and the makers of the pap must have struck a responsive and lucrative chord in their potential audience: even I feel like voting to get The Abomination out of the house. Rest assured I shan’t, but it’s still telling that I feel that way!
I imagine that there isn’t a single section of society or the professions which hasn’t been subject of a reality show. Although, thinking about it, I’m not sure that there has been a show about undertakers. I’m sure that I am merely revealing my ignorance of the programmes broadcast recently that I have managed to miss a whole series devoted to stiffs and their disposal called ‘Body Be gone!’ or ‘Corpses R Us’ or ‘From Body to Bill’ or something equally tasteful, tracing the touching human story of how to get rid of granny at the least possible cost while maintaining some sort of decorum. It is an undisputable fact that people will do anything to get their fifteen minutes of fame on the TV even if it means making a public spectacle of a relative’s corpse. Ugh!
This all reminds me of ‘The Loved One’ the title of Evelyn Waugh’s nasty novel about morticians: a thoroughly good read, which makes you think that there is some scope for a programme. I remember reading Nancy Mitford’s book, ‘The American Way of Death’ which was a revealing and memorable read and, while I was repulsed by the incredible depths that people would go to get a corpse looking right (!) it was an un-put-down-able read!
I look forward to being given details of the series which I have missed which utilised all the aspects of my ruminations. Just to know that it exists will further reinforce my belief that we are living in the most decadent of decadent times.
Ho Hum!
I do not think I can, in all conscience, watch the benighted programme until The Abomination has been taken off. I have not taken to leaving the room (which I do when ‘Coronation Street’ comes on the box) but have satisfied my values by sitting at a table where I cannot see the television (although I can make out what is happening by looking at the reflection of the TV in the sliding glass doors onto the conservatory! My excuse is that the ground floor of my house is open plan, and so there is no separate room into which I can flounce when the programme is aired. And no, I am not sitting in the toilet for an hour!
It is perhaps a credit to the programme that I feel as strongly as I do, and the makers of the pap must have struck a responsive and lucrative chord in their potential audience: even I feel like voting to get The Abomination out of the house. Rest assured I shan’t, but it’s still telling that I feel that way!
I imagine that there isn’t a single section of society or the professions which hasn’t been subject of a reality show. Although, thinking about it, I’m not sure that there has been a show about undertakers. I’m sure that I am merely revealing my ignorance of the programmes broadcast recently that I have managed to miss a whole series devoted to stiffs and their disposal called ‘Body Be gone!’ or ‘Corpses R Us’ or ‘From Body to Bill’ or something equally tasteful, tracing the touching human story of how to get rid of granny at the least possible cost while maintaining some sort of decorum. It is an undisputable fact that people will do anything to get their fifteen minutes of fame on the TV even if it means making a public spectacle of a relative’s corpse. Ugh!
This all reminds me of ‘The Loved One’ the title of Evelyn Waugh’s nasty novel about morticians: a thoroughly good read, which makes you think that there is some scope for a programme. I remember reading Nancy Mitford’s book, ‘The American Way of Death’ which was a revealing and memorable read and, while I was repulsed by the incredible depths that people would go to get a corpse looking right (!) it was an un-put-down-able read!
I look forward to being given details of the series which I have missed which utilised all the aspects of my ruminations. Just to know that it exists will further reinforce my belief that we are living in the most decadent of decadent times.
Ho Hum!
Owning a car is a way of life; a via dolorosa; a Sisyphean burden; a Tartarean experience of misery filled depression; it is an imposition by a cruel god of unmitigated horror to blight your existence. And it is expensive. Very expensive.
Someone once said (probably my Dad) that if you sit down and work out the expenses then you will be able to prove that you cannot afford to run a car. When you are presented for a bill for seven hundred pounds (700 pounds sterling) [7 x £100] {jobseekers weekly allowance times fourteen} then you don’t need to work it out: you can’t afford it. It wasn’t as if the car wasn’t working; it wasn’t as if the engine had seized up; as if the tyres had been ripped to shreds; as if the metal of the bloody thing was riddled with what we ex Triumph Herald Estate owners knew as the reason for the decline of the British car industry: rust. I was always having to have “only a little bit of welding Stephen” before I could get my hands on an
MOT certificate. But £700 was more (much more) than I paid for the whole car; in fact for the first series of cars that I owned. But it is best not to think about things like that; never translate from one age to another in terms of money, otherwise you will work out that you are paying 6/- for an apple and your world will collapse and you will have to assume a foetal position before you come to terms with the world again.
Someone once said (probably my Dad) that if you sit down and work out the expenses then you will be able to prove that you cannot afford to run a car. When you are presented for a bill for seven hundred pounds (700 pounds sterling) [7 x £100] {jobseekers weekly allowance times fourteen} then you don’t need to work it out: you can’t afford it. It wasn’t as if the car wasn’t working; it wasn’t as if the engine had seized up; as if the tyres had been ripped to shreds; as if the metal of the bloody thing was riddled with what we ex Triumph Herald Estate owners knew as the reason for the decline of the British car industry: rust. I was always having to have “only a little bit of welding Stephen” before I could get my hands on an
MOT certificate. But £700 was more (much more) than I paid for the whole car; in fact for the first series of cars that I owned. But it is best not to think about things like that; never translate from one age to another in terms of money, otherwise you will work out that you are paying 6/- for an apple and your world will collapse and you will have to assume a foetal position before you come to terms with the world again.Anyway, how important are properly working brakes?
I hate cars.
True!
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